After the dahabeah came a kitchen steamer, carrying four French cooks and one Arab cook, and towing a barge full of provisions and live stock, such as turkeys, sheep, and chickens. Following this came another steamer, having on board Colonel Stanton, British Consul-General at Cairo, with two Egyptian gentlemen, Mourad Pasha and Abd El Kader Bey, and towing a barge containing horses, donkeys, and a French washerwoman. Nor was this all. In his anxiety to do everything possible for the comfort of the Royal party, the Viceroy had actually provided another steamer of lighter draft than the Federabanee, simply in case the latter vessel should get stuck in the mud.
The whole flotilla was completed by a steamer belonging to the Duke of Sutherland, the father of the present Duke, who brought with him a distinguished party, composed of his son, Lord Stafford, Colonel Marshall, Dr. Russell, Mr. Sumner, Professor Owen, Mr. Fowler, the distinguished engineer, Major Alison, the Duke’s brother Lord A. Gower, and Sir Henry Pelly.
The King looked forward to having plenty of sport during the voyage. Accordingly he had taken a large variety of guns of almost every calibre in use, as well as a wherry to be used for approaching land game. For the purpose of capturing crocodiles, nets were brought which had been specially made under the superintendence of Sir Samuel Baker. The King also specially arranged for the inclusion in his party of a clever naturalist and taxidermist.
Both the King and Queen greatly enjoyed this novel form of yachting, although, unfortunately, bad weather soon set in, and the Alexandra was frequently enveloped in clouds of dust and sand. Notwithstanding this, however, the King had fairly good sport and bagged some very large birds, though the crocodiles were, on the whole, conspicuous by their absence. Soon the Royal taxidermist could show some very fine specimens of spoonbills, flamingoes, herons, cranes, cormorants, and doves.
Mrs. Grey thus records an amusing adventure which happened on 9th February:—
“The fog was so thick this morning that we could not start till nine o’clock, the hour at which we are in future usually to begin our day’s voyage being between five and six in the morning; and then to go on, with occasional stoppages, till six in the evening. We now only went on for about an hour, as the Prince wanted to try and shoot some ducks from a small punt with a large gun, which had been lent to him for the trip. At eleven, the Princess and myself, with Prince Battenberg, Sir S. Baker, Mr. Brierley, and Dr. Minter, followed in another boat to look at the shooting. We saw perfect swarms of wild ducks, and hundreds of flamingoes and a few pelicans. However, the ducks took fright, and only a few flamingoes were shot. We determined to land, as soon as we saw that we could no longer spoil the sport; but the water being low, we stuck fast in the sand about thirty or forty yards from the shore. The four boatmen at once took off their jackets, shoes, and trousers; but luckily some undergarments (waistcoats and trousers in one) remained; and in they jumped, and dragged the boat a few yards, beyond which their utmost efforts were unable to move it. The alternative was now either to remain in the boat or to allow ourselves to be carried through the water. Of course we chose the latter. Sir S. Baker and Mr. Brierley carried the Princess, crossing their arms, on which she sat.”
Ultimately the whole party got off and reached Minieh. There the King joined a shooting party on the following day, while the Queen, Prince Louis of Battenberg, and some of the others visited the Viceroy’s palace, and afterwards saw the process of making sugar out of the sugar-canes. Queen Alexandra and Mrs. Grey were allowed to visit the wife of one of the directors of the sugar factory, whom Mrs. Grey describes as a very ugly woman, painted and bedizened. The room was full of her women friends, all as ugly and as lavishly dressed as she was. Queen Alexandra, however, was much pleased with the novelty of such a visit, for, though the hostess and her friends were very cheerful and talked and laughed, yet naturally everything that was said was quite unintelligible to their English visitors. The Queen afterwards sent some presents to the ladies in memory of the visit.
On the 11th the Queen and Mrs. Grey succeeded in staying for the whole day in the dahabeah, where they played and wrote and painted. The same thing happened on the afternoon of the 13th, the morning being occupied by an interesting lecture from Mr. Fowler on the Suez Canal.